User:Irishelasmobranchgroup/draft article on starry smooth-hound
| Starry smooth-hound | |
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| Species: | M. asterias
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| Binomial name | |
| Mustelus asterias Cloquet, 1821
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The starry smooth-hound, Mustelus asterias, is a houndshark of the family Triakidae, found on the continental shelves of the Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. The southern limit of its distribution is Mauritania. The white spots of Mustelus asterias have long been used as the specific characteristic to differentiate M. asterias from the related common smooth-hound, Mustelus mustelus however the appearance of these spots displays much intraspecific variability and they may appear vivid, faint or even absent in some specimens. This is not unusual among white-spotted Mustelus species and has also been documented in Mustelus manazo. The consequence of this is that M. asterias with no obvious spots or even very faint spots are often misidentified as M. mustelus. This has
References[edit]
- Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.) (2006). "Mustelus asterias" in FishBase. July 2006 version.
- Compagno, Dando, & Fowler, Sharks, Collins Gem, HarperCollins, London 2006) ISBN 0-00-721986-5
- Farrell, E.D. (2010). The life history and population biology of the starry smooth-hound, Mustelus asterias, in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. PhD thesis, University College Dublin. Ireland.
- Farrell, E.D., Clarke, M.W. & Mariani, S. (2009). A simple genetic identification method for Northeast Atlantic smoothhound sharks (Mustelus spp.). ICES Journal of Marine Science. 66:561-565.
- Farrell, E.D., Mariani, S. & Clarke, M.W. (2010). Age and growth estimates for the starry smoothhound, (Mustelus asterias) in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 67: 931-939.
- Farrell, E.D., Mariani, S. & Clarke, M.W. (in press). Reproductive biology of the starry smooth-hound shark (Mustelus asterias): geographic variation and implications for sustainable exploitation. Journal of Fish Biology.
